In the Zone, a retreat from the real world

Until a couple of weeks ago, I’d always thought the casinos of Las Vegas provided the ultimate in an insulated, shut-out-the-outside-world environment. With no windows and no clocks, there’s nothing to distract the gamblers or to remind them of other activities, obligations or possibilities as they pour dollar after dollar onto the craps, roulette and blackjack tables (or quarter after quarter into the slot machines).

But then I went to the ESPN Zone in Anaheim, one of eight such establishments scattered around the country. The ESPN Zone, which might be regarded as a sort of hyperkinetic offspring of the sports network, is a small-scale Disneyland for sports nuts -- which may explain why it’s in Downtown Disney, a goofy block or two from Disneyland itself.

At the ESPN Zone, one can bowl, shoot baskets, smack a hockey puck, throw a football or baseball, drive a simulated race car and play sports video and interactive games of every imaginable combination and permutation.

What makes the Zone a closed environment, though, isn’t just the games -- it’s the television sets.

I counted more than 100 of them showing games and matches past and present -- baseball, football, basketball, tennis, boxing, golf, soccer, horse racing, auto racing, rodeo riding, fishing. I half-expected to see the world dart-throwing championships from a small pub in England

There are multiple TV sets on every wall and staircase at the ESPN Zone. TVs are suspended from the ceiling. They’re over the bar and at your table in the restaurant. There are 26 screens over the check-in desk alone.

Just as many restrooms in Vegas have slot machines, so the restrooms at the ESPN Zone have TV screens -- on the wall above the urinals and suspended from the ceilings above the commodes. The Zone restaurant has a 60-foot screen, with six smaller screens set into the wall on either side. A sports headline crawl in red runs over them all, and -- alongside the TVs -- lights flash constantly changing sports scores, schedules and bits of trivia and history.

In effect, the ESPN Zone represents a double immersion, the ultimate marriage of the two great opiates of the American people: sports and television.

A mesmerizing presence

I say that as a serious sports fan. I devour the sports section of The Times every day. I’m a Dodger season ticket-holder, an occasional visitor to Laker and UCLA basketball games and USC football games. I also watch a fair amount of televised sports, especially with a 13-year-old son who’s never met a sport (or a statistic) he didn’t like. It was his idea, in fact, that we go to the ESPN Zone, and for 3 1/2 hours, he had a great time. I brought a book to read, knowing he’d probably prefer to play by himself

But I kept finding my attention drawn to the ubiquitous television sets -- and to the mindless immersion and sensory overload they represent, the media bath in which we’re all awash, all the more so when there’s a Big Story, whether real (the war in Iraq) or contrived (take your pick -- the wall-to-wall Princess Di coverage was my personal “favorite”).

The TV sets in the Zone -- always on, everywhere -- reminded me of various friends who turn on the television as soon as they come home every day; they open the door, put down the house keys (maybe) and turn on the TV. And they leave it on, through dinner, till bedtime (or past). It almost doesn’t matter what’s on -- good, bad or indifferent -- or whether they’re even in the room ... or awake. It’s there. It’s on. It’s a constant companion -- and in many homes, it’s a baby-sitter as well.

I acknowledge the power of television. Much as I hate to admit it, there’s no medium like television for immediacy and intimacy in news presentation. Yes, the Internet may be even more immediate, but its content is often neither thoughtful nor reliable. And I haven’t seen anything on a computer screen that feels as personal as Dan Rather in my living room, Wolf Blitzer in my bedroom, Tom Brokaw in my hotel room -- all accompanied by moving, often dramatic pictures.

But they’re not enough to keep me watching nonstop, and with very few exceptions, I can barely tolerate what passes for entertainment on television.

Just as too much television news is superficial or sensationalized, so most TV entertainment is feeble and sophomoric.

So why do so many people watch so much television -- three hours a day, on 2.75 TV sets per household, according to the latest studies? Is it boredom? Or inertia?

Whatever it is, it’s probably the same thing that keeps many people glued to their sets all weekend, watching one sports event after another.

“It’s a result, I think, of the fragmentation of the family and the community and our entire society,” says Dr. Eric Denson, a clinical psychologist who serves as the assistant director of the counseling center at Western Washington University. “It reflects a reluctance by many people to connect with other people. It’s just easier to turn on the TV than to engage with friends or family.”

Television and spectator sports are essentially passive activities, vicarious experiences, that give viewers pleasure without either effort or risk, Denson says.

Television has become such a constant presence in our lives that some scholars worry not only about the effect of that presence but also about the effect of its occasional absence.

“We’ve so naturalized and internalized the television experience that I think a lot of people feel uncomfortable when they’re not watching, not plugged in, not a part of that permanent data flow,” says Siva Vaidhyanathan, assistant professor of culture and communications at New York University. “When TV isn’t immediately available, they feel out of the loop, disconnected, anxious, insecure.”

Super Bowl as tribal ritual

Television sports viewership overall has been declining somewhat in recent years -- for major league baseball and professional football and basketball -- but we still live in a country in which the top-rated television show, year after year, is the Super Bowl. The vast majority of Super Bowl games have either been boring or blowouts -- or both--with 38-9, 46-10, 42-10, 55-10 and 52-17 just a few of the lopsided scores. And yet nine of the 15 all-time highest-rated shows in television history were Super Bowls.

Most years, more than two-thirds of the television sets turned on while the Super Bowl is being played are tuned in to the game. This year’s game drew an average audience of almost 89 million viewers to ABC -- 20% more than watched President Bush’s televised ultimatum last month giving Saddam Hussein 48 hours to get out of town and 44% more than watched the president deliver his State of the Union address in January, even though both speeches were televised on several networks simultaneously.

Even more stunning, more than 137 million people -- almost half the U.S. population -- watched at least part of this year’s Super Bowl, a 48-21 rout.

“Sports is a sort of tribalization,” Vaidhyanathan says. “The more mobile we are, the more we move and travel, the more we’re displaced, the more we’re swept up in a global flow, the more we want to grab onto the portable parts of our identity, and sports affiliations are certainly a part of that. That’s the badge of your tribe. There’s almost a childish attachment to one’s team.

“I’ve never been a bigger patriot than when I was in Europe during the last World Cup when France lost in the first round and the U.S. kept going on.”

Maybe so. But when I was in the ESPN Zone, during the Iraq war, and the big screen flashed the only non-sports images I saw all day -- a promotional spot touting ABC News coverage of the war -- the guy at the table next to me muttered several obscene and distinctly unpatriotic imprecations about what he saw as this “intrusion” on his afternoon.

I guess he would have felt differently if the screen had shown Peter Jennings interviewing Kobe Bryant.

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com.